This invention has relation to apparatus for feeding bees by a method which substantially reduces the possibility of bees becoming fouled with liquid feed while they are ingesting it, and, at the same time, keeps the feed liquid at an optimum temperature for feeding and handling.
A well recognized practice in apiculture, or the keeping of bees on a large scale, is to reduce or destroy the bee colonies at the end of the productive season and then to start with new bees at the beginning of the next season. Without providing some means of feeding the bees before the flora develops to an appropriate point in the springtime, the beginning of production in northern climes, for example, is unduly delayed, and the overall production for the season thus greatly reduced.
Others have developed formulations for liquid bee feeds which closely simulate the effects attained by bees feeding on the natural flora. One such formulation is a fructose solution. Another is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,081,556 to Louveaux et al, granted in March of 1978. Any other liquid insect feed would work satisfactorily in the apparatus and in accordance with the method of the present invention.
Long ago, efforts were made to supply saccharine to bees in excess of the amounts they were able to gather from blossoms in order that the bees could be kept from starvation throughout the winter, and also to give them an easily accessible and ample suppy of food before the honey-gathering season begins. A search of the prior art revealed only two such attempts.
First, the patent to Rooker, U.S. Pat. No. 562,853 granted in June of 1896 disclosed a raft floating on a confined sea of liquid bee food, with an upper portion of this confined area being open to the hive. The bees came through these openings, stood on the raft, and reached down into the liquid to feed on it. The difficulty with this apparatus was the same difficulty encountered by the present inventor when he tried to feed bees from relatively open supplies of liquid bee food. Bee feed liquids are sticky in nature, and the bees tend to reach far down into the liquid as they would into a flower when feeding. The liquid then inevitably passes from the outside of the proboscis from forward portions of the head onto the feet, body, and most important, eventually onto the wings. This sticky liquid on the exterior of the bees, then, eventually disables and kills the bees. Entire hives have been lost in feedings where the bees have an access to the bee feed liquid such as disclosed in the Rooker patent.
Another attempt at providing bees an access to bee feed liquids is seen in the patent to Thale, U.S. Pat. No. 1,108,277, granted in August of 1914. This patent presents an elongated substantially flat hollow member having perforations in its upper face at one end and a bottle holder at the other end. Feed or syrup is allowed to pass from the bottle into the hollow member and to ooze up through the perforations where it will be consumed by bees. There was a slide which can be positioned to cover some part of the perforations. By covering and uncovering some of the perforations, different quantities of feed may be fed in different periods of time. This apparatus, then, presents an open area of syrup or bee feed liquid from which the bees are to feed. According to the experience of the present applicant, this will inevitably cause the bees to get their feet, their bodies, and more particularly, their wings fouled up and to thereby destroy themselves because of an inability to fly.
A search was made in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and the Rooker and Thale patents were the only patents pertinent to a bee feeding apparatus and method which were located. Neither applicant nor those in privity with him know of any closer prior art or of any prior art which anticipates the claims made in this application.
In order to provide an apparatus and method for feeding bees to overcome the problems of the prior art, to insure that the bees do not come into fouling contact with a bee feed liquid, and to provide that the liquid be maintained at a temperature where it is easily manageable and readily assimilated by the bees, the present invention was developed.